Nashville Bits and Pieces

[AronG]

Huge fan of the effort to maintain and improve our urban canopy. It goes a long way towards humanizing urban areas, is relatively inexpensive, and has positive impact in a variety of areas (http://www.southernforests.org/urban/benefits-of-urban-trees). We have quite a few blocks downtown that reap these benefits, here's hoping we're able to spread them further.

[QCxpat]

From The New York Times, "36 Hours in Nashville: Flourishing art and food scenes, and musical venues that celebrate new voices are just a few of the reasons to visit this ever-evolving city," by Collene Creamer, October 4, 2018.

Excerpt:  "Nashville has undergone a number of iterations in recent decades, from its longstanding position as the “home of country music” to its boozier, fun cousin “Nashvegas” to its most recent as home to one of the fastest-growing foreign-born populations in the United States (not to mention the country’s No. 1 destination for bachelorette parties). Tourism aside, Nashville lures those wanting the cultural heft of larger cities on the coasts without the price tag. Behind the swell of newcomers are the expected bonuses: flourishing restaurant and art scenes, and a new crop of gleaming hotels that have brought with them performance spaces and rooftop bars."  "For now, open-mic nights in taverns across town continue to be where new talent gets heard, so Nashville’s abiding place as a singer/songwriter mecca remains. For this short visit, skip the party madness on Second Avenue and Broadway, and find places like the Station Inn and the Douglas Corner Cafe that showcase what Nashville is famous for: fresh, original songs and the people who give them voice. Nashville has a large Hispanic population and sizable numbers of Kurds, Somalis, Egyptians, Sudanese and Laotians. So that food scene? It has some interesting contributors."

 A view of Nashville from the Thompson Hotel.  CreditWilliam DeShazer for The New York Times

Link to the NY Times story:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/travel/what-to-do-in-nashville.html

[smeagolsfree]

Funny that most of the comment are non New Yorkers and mostly from Nashville.

[markhollin]

Article on how public spaces are being more proactively included in designs of projects around Nashville:

https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/nashville-post-magazine/article/21025705/the-new-space-age

 

[Rockatansky]

5 hours ago, QCxpat said:

Nashville has a large Hispanic population

Not really. Davidson County is 10% Hispanic. The country as a whole is 18% Hispanic.

[tragenvol]

1 hour ago, Rockatansky said:

Not really. Davidson County is 10% Hispanic. The country as a whole is 18% Hispanic.

And that the Kurdish population is "large"...actually it's larger than anywhere else in the U.S.

[Pdt2f]

1 hour ago, Rockatansky said:

Not really. Davidson County is 10% Hispanic. The country as a whole is 18% Hispanic.

I suppose compared to other southern cities we have a large Hispanic population. Not to California or Texas, though. It certainly seems like there is a substantial population when I drive down Nolensville Pike. 

[Tennessine]

Comparatively speaking, we have a larger Hispanic population in Middle Tenn. compared with the rest of the state. My hometown of Shelbyville has the largest, if I am not mistaken. But yeah, the Hispanic population in the rest of the state isn't significant. In fact, I believe Knoxville has the highest percentage of non-Hispanic whites as compared with any other metropolitan area in the South.

What we do have is the nation's largest Kurdish community. I think it's fascinating how we claim that title.

 

If you're interested in demographics, check out this site. It provides information about ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken at home.

https://statisticalatlas.com/state/Tennessee/Overview

[tragenvol]

2 hours ago, nativetenn said:

If you're interested in demographics, check out this site. It provides information about ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken at home.

https://statisticalatlas.com/state/Tennessee/Overview

Incredulous!  This does not  provide Southern Appalachian percentages.

 

 

[TNinVB]

On 10/4/2018 at 8:54 AM, Pdt2f said:

What would be nice is if they start planting groves of trees in the big circles made by on- and off- ramps in cloverleaf interstate exits/entrances (think Briley/65/24). I know there’s probably some sort of federal regulations about it, but if that land is going to spend eternity undeveloped I would rather it have some trees that help hide the hideousness than a grassy field that has to be mowed for 3/4 of the year. 

I totally agree with you. I don’t think there’s a federal law prohibiting it. There are plenty interstate on/off ramps here in Virginia that has trees or landscaping. If you are ever on I-4O in North Carolina in the Triad region, look at how well their interstates and on/off ramps are landscaped. Every time I drive through there to come home to visit Nashville, I’m always amazed how nice it looks. Then I get into Tennessee......our interchanges are definitely lacking in visual appeal. 

[MLBrumby]

Kentucky's are nice too. Tennessee's are shabby, at best. Alabama's are too. Georgia's are a little better. I have come to the realization that TDOT sucks. 

[Mr_Bond]

1 hour ago, TNinVB said:

I totally agree with you. I don’t think there’s a federal law prohibiting it. There are plenty interstate on/off ramps here in Virginia that has trees or landscaping. If you are ever on I-4O in North Carolina in the Triad region, look at how well their interstates and on/off ramps are landscaped. Every time I drive through there to come home to visit Nashville, I’m always amazed how nice it looks. Then I get into Tennessee......our interchanges are definitely lacking in visual appeal. 

Those areas can be planted with native trees and plant species that will require no maintenance, no mowing, and will provide habitat for native animal species.  Of course, animal habitat means animals will live there and occasionally be killed by vehicular traffic.  So, the native vultures will also be fed.

[CenterHill]

Maintenance of vegetation in interstate medians and ramps is a state by state policy decision.    Many states allow trees to grow in medians, in the large circles at the off ramps and generally closer to the highway than TDOT does, although TDOT allows it in a few places where the median widens to traverse certain terrain.     Every state has a budget for mowing, trimming and maintaining vegetation along their interstates and many choose to spend less than Tennessee.     I don't have state by state comparisons and I can't say that Tennessee necessarily spends more per mile than most, but I expect we're up there.     

Virginia and NC were mentioned and I agree they put more of an emphasis on "natural" landscapes along their highways.   Pennsylvania, too, and honestly many of the Eastern seaboard states.    With the right mix of prairie grasses, it really is not necessary to mow medians every 2 months in the summer, in fact the grasses look much more appealing in their natural state.    

[KJHburg]

3 hours ago, TNinVB said:

I totally agree with you. I don’t think there’s a federal law prohibiting it. There are plenty interstate on/off ramps here in Virginia that has trees or landscaping. If you are ever on I-4O in North Carolina in the Triad region, look at how well their interstates and on/off ramps are landscaped. Every time I drive through there to come home to visit Nashville, I’m always amazed how nice it looks. Then I get into Tennessee......our interchanges are definitely lacking in visual appeal. 

NC has a very active wildflower program across the state and the different regions of the state DOT compete for who has the best.  The funding? Sale of personalized license plates   

here is a guidebook and I literally see people pulling over on the shoulder and taking photos in the fields not really recommended of course. 

https://www.ncdot.gov/initiatives-policies/environmental/wildflower/Documents/ncdot-wildflower-booklet.pdf

[markhollin]

New Census data shows that the city’s income inequality may actually be on the downtrend as Nashville’s economic surge attracts both higher-paying jobs and rising wages in low-skilled sectors. Indeed, the middle class has been growing in the greater 14-county Nashville metro area, one new study found.

In 2017, 63.2 percent of the metro area’s households were in the broad middle class, defined as having incomes between $23,000 and $113,000, according to the Brookings analysis of Census data. That’s up from 61.6 percent in 2000.

 

It represents the seventh-fastest middle-class growth among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Meanwhile, the share of households in the low-income category dropped, according to findings from a new study by The Brookings Institution.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/10/08/nashville-income-inequality-new-residents-actually-getting-better-economy-development/1527210002/

[bhibbs]

24 minutes ago, markhollin said:

New Census data shows that the city’s income inequality may actually be on the downtrend as Nashville’s economic surge attracts both higher-paying jobs and rising wages in low-skilled sectors. Indeed, the middle class has been growing in the greater 14-county Nashville metro area, one new study found.

In 2017, 63.2 percent of the metro area’s households were in the broad middle class, defined as having incomes between $23,000 and $113,000, according to the Brookings analysis of Census data. That’s up from 61.6 percent in 2000.

 

It represents the seventh-fastest middle-class growth among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Meanwhile, the share of households in the low-income category dropped, according to findings from a new study by The Brookings Institution.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/10/08/nashville-income-inequality-new-residents-actually-getting-better-economy-development/1527210002/

 

Wish someone would tell my employer about these rising wages

[Pdt2f]

By the way, it’s absurd that they consider a household income of $23,000 “middle class.” Especially in this city. Seems like they’ve taken some statistical liberties, or at least redefined what the common understanding of middle class is. 

[Mr_Bond]

10 hours ago, markhollin said:

New Census data shows that the city’s income inequality may actually be on the downtrend as Nashville’s economic surge attracts both higher-paying jobs and rising wages in low-skilled sectors. Indeed, the middle class has been growing in the greater 14-county Nashville metro area, one new study found.

In 2017, 63.2 percent of the metro area’s households were in the broad middle class, defined as having incomes between $23,000 and $113,000, according to the Brookings analysis of Census data. That’s up from 61.6 percent in 2000.

 

It represents the seventh-fastest middle-class growth among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Meanwhile, the share of households in the low-income category dropped, according to findings from a new study by The Brookings Institution.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/10/08/nashville-income-inequality-new-residents-actually-getting-better-economy-development/1527210002/

 

Regardless of whether we agree on $23,000 as the bottom of the range for "middle class" or not, as long as the range is applied consistently, we can compare figures across the country.  Besides, $23,000 goes farther in Wiggins, MS, than it does in Nashville or San Francisco.

Now, back to the important part of this posting from @markhollin.  A growing "middle class" truly is important to the long-term health of an economy and the fact that Nashville has the 7th fastest middle-class growth in the country should be a good sign to all of us who want to see this city be a great place to live, work and play.

Side note: "Income inequality" is a straw man, a meaningless measure meant to employ bureaucrats and academics and to empower government to take money from the wealthy.  If "income inequality" is measured as the gap between the annual income of the poor and the wealthy in a given location for a given period of time, the poor don't care.  The poor care if they have food to eat, a roof over their head, access to health care, and some opportunity to improve their life.  If the poor have their basic needs met and feel like what they have is somewhat secure, they care not if the wealthy make $400,000 a year or $450,000.  This point can be proven by the number of immigrants from around the world who risk their lives to come to the United States.  They know that the poor in this country live very good lives compared to the poor in their country of origin.  And they know they will have opportunity for advancement here.  Rant over.

[ruraljuror]

12 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

Side note: "Income inequality" is a straw man, a meaningless measure meant to employ bureaucrats and academics and to empower government to take money from the wealthy.  If "income inequality" is measured as the gap between the annual income of the poor and the wealthy in a given location for a given period of time, the poor don't care.  The poor care if they have food to eat, a roof over their head, access to health care, and some opportunity to improve their life.  If the poor have their basic needs met and feel like what they have is somewhat secure, they care not if the wealthy make $400,000 a year or $450,000.  This point can be proven by the number of immigrants from around the world who risk their lives to come to the United States.  They know that the poor in this country live very good lives compared to the poor in their country of origin.  And they know they will have opportunity for advancement here.  Rant over.

Enlightening.  Where did you get idea that the issue with income inequality is about whether or not the poor 'care' whether or not some wealthy person makes 400 or 450k a year?   That would seem to me to be a straw man argument, which is a concept your obviously familiar with but seem to fail to recognize in your own logic.   

I can't claim to be poor, but I certainly don't care whether a person earns 40k, 400k, or 4 million a year.   But I do very much care when top tax rates are cut....and then the economic stimulus that the cuts were supposed to generate falls short and we have to  cut government services and incur additional national debt in order to accommodate those tax breaks.  

The bigger issue with income inequality, however, is that it mostly represents improvements in efficiency and automation.   CEO pay relative to the average worker at their company has gone from 30 to 1 in 1970 to about 270 to 1 today.   Did CEO's become 9 times more valuable at the helms of their companies over that time, or did they absorb most of the savings that came from downsizing, offshoring, golden parachuting, deregulating, and merging/acquiring their way into a cornered market?   To be clear, I'm not even saying that some given CEO's 4 million dollar salary is unjustified, only that the means through which that money was accumulated has much larger social implications than whether poor people 'care' about it, and I think our standard of analysis should be a little higher than 'people still come here from desperate places so we must be on the right track'.  For those refugees, lowering their chance of getting murdered by a factor of 15 might be reason enough to make the trip, but you're certainly right that income inequality won't defer them.  

[billgregg]

Some pretty undesirable social phenomena tend to accompany high  levels of income and wealth inequality:

• Lower social mobility...in other words, a more rigid class system.
• Depressed economic growth.
• Lower levels of well-being (health and education) among people at the lower income levels.
• Higher levels of crime.
• Lower levels of public investment...possibly due to the wealthy sequestering themselves physically and financially from the rest of society.

Latin America is the poster boy for this kind of society and its ills.

[Pdt2f]

I don’t know if I consider wealth inequality in itself a bad thing, but I view it as indicative of other economic and social root problems, primarily the loss of widespread ownership of the means of production. Which typically happens when widespread self-employment (whether small business owners, craftsmen, artisans, shop owners, farmers, etc) is replaced either by a massive government bureaucracy or large, transnational or trans global corporations. I don’t disagree with those of you who point out the problems with wealth inequality, we just may not agree on solutions. 

[Mr_Bond]

Rather than quote my three fellow UP members, I'll hit some highlights here:

• It seems that all four of us are in agreement that a wide gap of "income inequality" can be a sign of other ills, perhaps many other ills.  If so, we should be measuring, reporting and discussing those other ills such as those listed by @billgregg55.  When we group all of these ills into one category called "income inequality" we have no real idea of what we're complaining  about and how to address it.
• As @Pdt2f pointed out, "income inequality" can be closely related to "the loss of widespread ownership of the means of production."  This can occur in countries as diverse as China or Peru today and was rampant in monarchies and feudal states in the past.  It is usually caused by a large, powerful government corrupted by titled landowners or privileged corporations.  The key solution here is smaller federal governments and less regulation (regulation is one of the primary tools used by established companies to protect themselves from competition).
• @ruraljuror, the lowering of tax rates are accompanied by an increase in tax revenue.  We were first taught this truth by President Kennedy.
• There are serious efforts underway by many people to address the best method of CEO compensation.  While CEOs were making more money, often the shareholders were as well, but not always.  This issue needs more attention from shareholders and directors of companies.

[markhollin]

Mayor Briley proposes a $351 million capital spending plan that includes schools, parks, street and sidewalk paving, and the redevelopment of a portion of the Cumberland River's east bank.

Here's a full breakdown of Briley's propose capital-spending plan:

Metro Nashville Public Schools

• $10 million for site work on Hillwood High School replacement in Bellevue 
• $50 million in district-wide projects

Public Works

• $30 million for street paving
• $30 million for sidewalks
• $15 million for roads
• $4 million for bridges
• $3 million for the department's traffic management program
• $2 million in matching funds to move to twice-a-month recycling pick-up
• $1.5 million for traffic-calming efforts
• $1.5 million for bikeways
• $20 million for east bank infrastructure work near River North

General Services

• $10 million more for the new Criminal Justice Center (site of the downtown jail) still under construction
• $17 million more for the new Metro Nashville Police Department headquarters and family justice center under construction on Murfreesboro Pike. 
• $15 million for the construction of a new Donelson Library
• $5 million for Nashville's Emergency Communications Center
• $2.2 million for renovations of the McGruder Center, a family resource center in North Nashville
• $1.8 million for work on Nashville's warehouse that houses voting machines

Public parks

• $12 million to begin work on Ravenwood Park
• $12 million to begin work on Mill Ridge Park 
• $10 million for new greenways and park land acquisition
• $8 million for deferred maintenance built up in the department

Libraries

• $15 million for a new Donelson Library
• $500,000 for upgrades at the downtown Main Library, including a new room to honor the women's suffrage movement
• $200,000 for planning on upgrades at the Richland Park Library

Miscellaneous projects

• $25 million for affordable housing projects 
• $20 million for various stormwater projects
• $10 million for Metro arts projects through the Percent for the Arts program/contingency
• $15 million for fire trucks, dump trucks and other large vehicles
• $6.3 million for IT work across Metro
• $5 million to update software at the Metro Finance Department
• $3 million to replace voting machines
• $2.3 million for repairs and upgrades at Nashville General Hospital
• $1.2 million on an HVAC replacement at the Nashville Farmers' Market

More at The Tennessean here:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/10/08/nashville-capital-spending-mayor-david-briley/1564826002/

[grilled_cheese]

TWICE A MONTH RECYCLING PICKUP!!!!!WQ

 

itshappening.gif

[ruraljuror]

2 hours ago, Mr_Bond said:

 

• @ruraljuror, the lowering of tax rates are accompanied by an increase in tax revenue.  We were first taught this truth by President Kennedy.

US tax receipts increase every year in part as a result of inflation and population growth (except during recession), but I think you'll find that those receipts almost always increase at a slower rate than projected following tax cuts (not to mention the service cuts and debt incurred to offset those underperforming projections).  Don't take my word for it though, there's more than 50 years of data to analyze since Kennedy's 'truth' was revealed.  

Of course, even that 'truth' is somewhat conditional, right?  Kennedy lowered the top tax rate from 91% to 65%, but not all cuts are equally healthy and beneficial.    While it's true that a 350 pound person person may achieve a 30% reduction in body weight through diet and exercise, a 90 pound person would probably have to amputate a limb or two to see that kind of weight loss result.  

That said, I certainly don't expect to change your mind, and I'm happy to get back on topic here - just didn't want to leave your rant unresponded to for fear that passers-by on the board might get the wrong idea and think we were all silently nodding along in agreement here.  

 

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by ruraljuror